Americans used to speak with a mixture of disgust and condescension
about the routine methods of bribe extraction practiced by police in the
Third World -- pull over the motoring tourist in his rental car, make
ominous noises about having to throw the offender in jail, and then suddenly
let it be known that it can all be taken care of, if only the victim will
"pay the fine right here."

Well, Paul Craig Roberts -- former Treasury Department subaltern
during the Reagan administration -- makes a convincing case that America's
"Department of Justice" is now engaging in fund-raising tactics
little removed from that old standby of Tijuana justice.

"Junk Bond King" Michael Milken -- now semi-retired
to Northern Nevada -- "has been thrice held for ransom" in unjustified
prosecutions, Roberts argues in a March 31 column in Investor's Business
Daily.

"Milken was first grabbed by U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani
and the Securities and Exchange Commission," Robert writes. "Milken
forked over $600 million to buy his way out of a 98-count indictment that
University of Chicago law professor Daniel Fischal has shown to be as
phony as a $3 bill.

"Milken was next seized by the Resolution Trust Corp. and
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. These agencies ludicrously blamed
the collapse of the savings and loans on junk bonds. To buy his way out
of endless litigation" -- funded by the taxpayers, of course -- "Milken
handed over $900 million."

But the latest version of "Your cow was trespassing; we're
fining her a gallon of milk" was the most outrageous, in Roberts'
view.

Milken agreed last year to serve as a consultant in merger negotiations
among MCI Communications, News Corp., and New World Communications, only
after a careful review by attorneys to make sure his role could in no
way be interpreted as that of a securities broker, which would risk violating
terms of his parole.

Nonetheless, Roberts reports, "The SEC's robber barons grabbed
Milken again." Casting covetous eyes on the $42 million consulting
fee Milken had been paid by News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and MCI's Bert
Roberts, the regulators demanded Milken fork it over -- plus a $5 million
bonus -- before they would give him a clean bill of health with his parole
judge.

Milken paid up on Feb. 26. Once the government had his money in
hand, the Justice Department wrote to the judge, indicating it had found
no reason to pursue Milken for parole violations -- that Justice had decided
he was innocent of any wrongdoing before he handed over his latest
ransom.

Thus, "The money extracted from Milken is neither fine nor
penalty and was not a payment for wrongdoing," writes Robert for
the Business Daily. "Proof of the point is that the $47 million went
into the Treasury's general fund and not into a fine fund. ... In other
words, Milken was held up and robbed by the SEC in broad daylight for
no other reason than the power the SEC has to extract ransoms from chosen
victims."

Furthermore, Robert concludes, "The Justice Department was
an accomplice in the extortion of Milken. In violation of rules of evidence,
Justice withheld exculpatory evidence and kept secret its findings that
Milken had committed no wrong until after he had paid his ransom. Indeed,
the SEC timed the extortion to take advantage of Milken's vulnerability
-- his term of probation expired on March 1. What we have witnessed is
a conspiracy between the SEC and the Justice Department to rob a man of
$47 million."

All this would be bad enough if we could believe Mr. Milken alone
had been singled out for such attentions. But in a passing reference in
its March 9 coverage of the federal "antitrust" case against
Bill Gates' Microsoft, Newsweek mentions the same antitrust team has "painful
memories of the endless 1970s and '80s IBM breakup case, which turned
into an O.J.-like courtroom comedy until it was rendered moot by a market-spawned
challenger to IBM ... Microsoft."

How's that again? The "crimes" in question became "moot"
once the chosen victim lost his preeminence in the market, and thus his
attractiveness for milking? So a necessary part of the definition of this
"crime" is success, while all one must do to escape official
"justice" is to lose market share?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Still, many an American will doubtless mimic Aunt Polly in The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, figuring these rascal billionaires must
have done something to merit their punishments, while blithely assuming
those of us without millions in the bank need never worry about being
victimized by such tactics.

Sure. Just like they assured our grandparents that no one but
millionaires would ever have to worry about paying "the income tax."

Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of
the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail
at vin@lvrj.com. The web site for the Suprynowicz column is at http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/.
The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain
Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127.